We gather that there are companies who specialise in making sure that proposed global brands do not offend local sensibilities. For instance, if you're thinking of launching a international network of Wi-Fi hotspots and calling it "Cabrones", these boys will tell you that you'll certainly have to rethink for the Spanish-speaking market.

Netflix and TiVo are to team up to deliver movies over broadband, according to NewsWeek. The magazine expects the partnership to go public later this month, although neither company would comment, and details on pricing and availability have yet to be disclosed. It's hardly unexpected: the two companies are natural partners and are already close: TiVo's CEO is a Netflix board member.

PlusNet says it's "thrown a lifeline" to the UK's small ISPs facing a 30 per cent increase in the wholesale cost of broadband. PlusNet reckons that if enough small ISPs consolidate their orders through the Sheffield-based ISP, it can make the cost of wholesale broadband much cheaper for small service providers.

Nokia has again called on Research in Motion to beef up its enterprise credibility, inking a deal with the Canadian company to bundle the latter's Blackberry Connect software on its Nokia 9500 communicator. The deal also extends to other Series 80 devices. Nokia already offers Blackberry Connect on 6820 phones in Europe, although legal issues have delayed a similar bundle being introduced in the United States.

Oracle has outlined at its user conference in London some of the increased functions of the latest version of its E-Business Suite 11i.10, including better business intelligence tools. Other improvements to the software are for specific industries like government or healthcare.

A startup whose technology will allow you to turn virtually anything into an input device, so for example you could use a table to change channel or pick up the phone, or control your computer by banging your head on the wall, has received €2 million in financing from European VC outfit Sofinnova. French company Sensitive Object's Reversys uses cheap sensors and a process it calls "time reversal acoustics" so that you can make the objects around you can come alive simply by tapping them.

Hard disc maker Seagate told Wall Street today that it hopes to do better than expected in its first quarter. The company expects to end the first quarter of 2005, ending 1 October 2004, with sales of between $1.48bn and $1.52bn with earnings per share of between 6 and 8 cents rather than the $1.47bn turnover and earnings of 3 cents per share analysts were expecting. Seagate said demand for drives remained strong.

Last week Microsoft was granted an ancient patent claim covering the navigation of web pages by keyboard. According to US Patent 6,785,865 (Discoverability and navigation of hyperlinks via tabs - Cote et al), the practice of tabbing through hyperlinks on a web page now belongs to Microsoft. The claim was filed more than seven years ago, in March 1997.

For most web surfers, the Wikipedia is simply an occasionally useful online resource that needs to be taken with a huge sackful of salt. For others, it's a poor excuse for a real encylopedia. But for its proponents, it's nothing short of revolutionary! It's Emergent[*], you see.

Are smaller businesses ready to adopt SANs? History is dubious, but the latest converts to the cause are Emulex and IBM, via a pair of cheap 'n cheerful Fibre Channel switches based on silicon that Emulex has been selling to the embedded market for use in disk arrays and the like.

IDF Fall '04
Intel has called on its developer community to recognise that it's designing for a digital planet now, and urged developers to think differently in approaching both established and emerging markets.